Friday, February 26, 2016

Saying a Lot

Having Our Say -- Long Wharf Theatre -- Thru March 13

Brenda Pressley and Olivia ColePhoto by T. Charles Erickson

You shouldn’t kick a puppy. You
shouldn’t steal candy from a baby. So how do you say anything negative about Emily
Mann’s Having Our Say: The Delany
Sisters’ First 100 Years? This tour of a century or so of black and American
history (which, of course, are intertwined), out of the mouths of two fragile
yet feisty women, which recently opened at Long Wharf Theatre under the
direction of Jade King Carroll and will soon migrate to Hartford Stage, is both
engaging and, ultimately, boring.

Yes, a lot has happened since the
Delany sisters -- Sadie (Olivia Cole) and Bessie (Brenda Pressley) -- were born
-- the Civil War was just some two decades in the past when they first saw the
light of day and the slaves had been freed to live a slightly different life of
indenture. What followed was decades of racism in subtle and not so subtle
forms: lynchings, Jim Crow laws, separate but equal, the civil rights movement
and, well, essentially where we find ourselves today. Yes, it’s the stuff of
gripping history, and the Delany sisters lived through it all, and that’s a
marvel, but it doesn’t make for great theater.

Okay, so why is it hard to be
negative about Having Our Say? Well,
from the moment the two sisters appear on stage you like them, you want to
listen to them, you want to sit down and have tea with them. Cole and Pressley
create two extremely memorable characters – you believe they are sisters and
you believe that they have lived the lives they speak about. You truly get the
feeling that you have been invited into their home in Mount Vernon and they are gracing you with
their memories. All you need is an afghan thrown over your legs and a fire
crackling in the fireplace.

You simply can’t ask for better
acting than what you will see from Cole and Pressley. There is never a doubt
that these two women on the stage have lived together for a century – they
complete each other’s lines and share the same mannerisms, yet they are not
clones. Cole, as Sadie, is the gentler of the two, more willing to let things
slide off her, to not take umbrage when the world offers unkindness, while
Pressley, as Bessie, is a fighter, someone who will not allow a slur to pass
unnoticed. They acknowledge their differences, gently taunt and tease each
other, but there is a binding love that is palpable, and it casts a warm glow
over the entire evening.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, warm glows do not a play
make. The dramatic arc of the play is the struggle that black people have lived
through over the decades, and this is where Having
Our Say falls short, for the sisters, as dramatized, were on the periphery
of the struggle, a struggle which continues to this day. They were essentially
observers to the momentous events. Thus, when we are not dealing with their relationship,
which is engaging, we are treated to seminars on black history, accented by
visual projections by Alexis Distler, who also designed the set. You can almost
sense when the play shifts from intimate relations to didacticism. During these
moments, lines delivered, mostly by Pressley, get applause. It’s akin to a
politician working the crowd, saying what the people want to hear. It isn’t
theater, it isn’t drama, it’s polemics, a stump speech. Do I disagree with these
lines, with their meaning? No. But I know when I’m being manipulated, and much
of Having Our Say is manipulation.

We care about Sadie and Bessie
because Cole and Pressley make us care, that’s great theater, but then our
concern for them is used to deliver messages, and valid though these messages
may be, when wrapped in the security blanket created by these two women as they
prepare their deceased father’s favorite meal, the messages cannot be argued,
debated or seriously weighed. What they say must
be right (and the applause attests to this). So, what we have is a tender
little domestic pastiche wedded to an argumentum
ad passions. It’s not that I disagree with anything that was said over the
two hours it took for Having Our Say
to unfold, I take exception to the manner in which it was presented.

What Having Our Say lacks is inner tension. Playwright Mann, drawing on
the book written by the Delanys and Amy Hill Hearth, sticks to the facts as
told by the Delany ladies, and they are interesting and sometimes engrossing,
but there are no skeletons in the closet, nothing to move towards and reveal,
nothing up for grabs between the two characters (you know, the good old rising
action and climax). Thus, Having Our Say
is often more lecture than drama. We gather together to hear what these ladies
have to say about their lives and we listen attentively, and we feel good about
ourselves as we leave the theater. We are on the side of the angels. Perhaps it
is only later, upon reflection, that we sense something missing at the core of Having Our Say, something that speaks to
why we go to the theater. If it is merely to have our beliefs confirmed, then I
imagine Having Our Say succeeds for
most, but if it is something else, the need to be swept up in a conflict that
is (perhaps tragically) resolved, then Having
Our Say does not deliver. It is, at the end, what it was at the beginning –
two very nice ladies sharing their memories. It’s a visit to Grandma’s house
where she offers you cocoa and cookies and reminisces (and never once mentions
how much she hated Grandpa, or why). It’s safe, it’s soothing, but it ain’t
drama.

Having
Our Say runs through March 13. For tickets or more information call
203-787-4282 or go to www.longwharf.org.